02x02 - Fatherland

[bunniefuu]

Previously on "Manhattan"...

That's why we're here, right?

So our husbands can invent the end of the world.

You're not building a radar system, are you?

Somewhere in Germany, h*tler's got a town just like this one full of scientists hungrier than you.

I need you to look at something.

You didn't hear this from me. Command calls him Magpie.

(German accent) Herr Doktor Schlimmer?

Cox: He has credible intelligence that their atomic program is two months ahead of ours.

They're more than two months ahead of us.

Occam: Magpie's dead... (g*nsh*t) and now we have no eyes on Heisenberg because somebody talked.

Meeks: My mother d*ed yesterday.

Is your mother still alive, Frank?

I don't know.

Where's Frank Winter?

He's gone and he's never coming back.

Wonder how long before Frank's daughter turns 18?

C-A-L-L-I-E.

I talked to Frank on the phone a little while ago.

He gave me his blessing.

Did he talk to him?

We're gonna build a working gadget, we're gonna drop it on Berlin 'cause on July 4th, 1945, we're gonna put on the biggest fireworks show since the Book of Genesis.

Occam: Who recruited him?

What?

Frank Winter recruited you.

Who recruited Frank Winter?

Jesus.

(Choking)

(g*nsh*t)

Ah! Ah!

(Man panting)

_

(Metal clinks)

_

(Metal squeaks, clangs)

(Panting)

(Thuds)

I want to apologize... while you're still of sound mind and body.

Am I under arrest?

Dr. Manfred Schlimmer, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. Code name Magpie.

Our source inside Heisenberg's lab, the only reason we knew the Nazis were on the brink of a b*mb.

You really think I'm the reason your German spy is dead?

I think you're 10 feet underground... and I am the only living soul who knows where you are.

I think that makes me the hand that feeds you and the hand that taketh away until all you've got left is time and space.

And then I take those.

And what's left is the truth.

Read up. Get to know the man you sentenced to death.

What are you?

A bureaucrat with a g*n.

You know absolutely nothing.

You've got the paperwork to back it up.

In 1936, you took a leave of absence from the University of Chicago to attend the Nobel ceremony of your friend Carl Anderson.

Three days later you boarded the Kronprinsessen Hilde to Hamburg, Germany, used a fake name.

Then you traveled by rail to Leipzig, paid cash at the Park Hotel.

Stayed two months.

Since then you've taken great pains to conceal that trip... falsifying your army background affidavit, for example.

That is what I know.

Make it last.

I'll be back in a couple of days.

Maybe three.

So much paperwork.

(Door creaks, slams)

(key turns)

Hello?

(water dripping)

(theme music playing)

(heavy breathing)

(banging)

Hello?

Hey.

I need some g*dd*mn food.

(Coughs)

Liza: Nice place.

Don't worry.

You could survive almost a month with no food.

Long as you have water.

When I... when I lied to you, it was only to protect you and protect Callie.

Just like your trip to Leipzig.

It's not important now.

The main point is... you missed something.

What did I miss?

The first lie.

What do you mean?

The one you tell yourself.

Liza: Heard the one about the turtles?

Yeah, from you.

Student stands up in a cosmology lecture and says, "Planets, stars, gravity... they're all lies. My mother says the world sits on the back of a giant turtle."

"All right," says the professor. "What's the turtle standing on?"

The student smiles and he says, "Oh, but don't you see?

Both: It's turtles all the way down."

I guess we all need a turtle to stand on sometimes.

There are so few constants in science.

And life.

It's mostly...

Variables.

Now these... these variables aren't intuitive.

In English or in German.

A word game.

You physicists love to hide names in math.

Like a crossword.

It's a narcissist's trick to convince himself he loves other people.

I notice you've never used my name.

I hid, uh...

I hid Callie's.

Immortalize your daughter in the footnote of a b*mb...

C-A-L-L-I-E.

Yet somehow you never remember her birthday.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

This...

This can't be right.

But it is...

These are my goddamned equations.

This... this is our daughter's name.

In Magpie's math.

That means...

You were wrong.

The Nazis are stealing our work.

They're building their b*mb on the back of my g*dd*mn math.

The bureaucrat was right.

There's a fox in the henhouse.

There is a spy.

There is a spy back on the Hill.

Oh, my God.

Hey!

Hey, you want me to talk?

I'll talk!

(Door squeaks)

(piano playing faintly)

(echoing) Hello?

Hey.

Hey!

Hello? Is anyone here?

(Men shouting)

Hey!

(Whimpers, splutters)

(coughing)

Man: 1,478 agitators in my care and you ain't one of 'em.

Smell like one of 'em.

(Whimpers)

(groans)

W-where am I?

Who are you, Houdini?

Must be the first guy ever broke into prison.

No. No, no, I was brought here.

By whom?

I don't know. I don't know his name.

He was a X-4 government agent.

Listen to me.

Call Santa Fe 33200.

You tell them badge G-11 has important information about Magpie.

And if they want it, they gotta get me out of here.

It's a matter of national security.

Yeah.

I hear that a lot.

Anybody winds up here off the books, that's someone Uncle Sam wants to disappear.

Who am I to argue?

What say we throw him in with Tojos? See what happens?

No, no.

No, wait... wait a minute.

I'm not... I'm not supposed to be in here.

Hey!

There's been some kind of misunderstanding!

(Whimpers)

(camera film whirring)

Charlie: I'm showing you this classified footage at the request of the Army.

These are the conditions our guys can expect when we put boots down in Europe.

Can someone hit the lights?

We're invading Europe?

When?

Also classified.

But when we do, the Army's gonna deploy a special team to look for W.A.M.D.s.

W.A.M.D.s?

Weapons Adaptable to Mass Destruction.

They'll be looking for our German sister city.

A place just like this building a W.A.M.D. just like ours.

How far along are they?

There's nothing but wartime rumor.

It's up to us to tell the Army what to look for, not just oversized factories and uranium stockpiles.

Use your imaginations.

What about our w*apon?

I thought we were planning a test detonation.

We'll be forming a new test group.

There will be an announcement soon.

For now if you're in this room, you have your assignment.

All right.

Not here, Helen.

I left you six messages.

I'm running a technical staff of 600.

I'm a little busy.

Right. You talk to Frank again?

Uh, no. Sorry.

I have to brief the S.E.D. staff on implosion.

Frank is implosion.

We all have to move on.

Oh, I have.

Meeks: Come on, Helen.

Come on. Let's go.

(piano playing faintly)

(ringing)

(groans)

(door squeaks)

(Man crying out)

(voices echoing)

(coughs)

Wait! Hey! Wait! No!

Hey! Hey!

- Hey! Wait a minute! Wait a minute!

Whoa! Hey!

Stay back!

No!

Don't take another step!

Wait!

Wait, no... no, no, you... you got the wrong idea.

God, do you know... do you know what this place is?

It's a... it's a relocation camp, right?

For the internment of Japanese political dissidents?

Hands!

What?

Hands. Show 'em to me!

Okay.

All right.

Fresh off the boat?

Clean hands. No labor vos liberabit for you.

"Work will set you free"?

It's not helping the guys out there.

College man, eh?

Yeah, that'll come in real handy in Tosa.

Tosa? What is that, the name of this prison?

The name of the town we're in?

What? Where are we?

Back!

What the... Jesus. Never... never mind.

(Mumbling)

Hey, come back!

Come back! I need to make a phone call!

Man: I figured it out.

You're Houdini, right?

The guy who appeared out of thin air.

We heard about you.

You really don't know why we're here.

I saw Houdini when I was 15.

I don't suppose that you can pick a lock...

You didn't tell me.

What is Tosa?

It's a province in Japan.

They breed fighting dogs.

They're the finest in the world.

(Sighs)

The guards in this prison don't have any dogs.

But, uh, when you're bored and you're a betting man, you work with what you got.

And what you got here is a bunch of guys who don't, strictly speaking, exist.

So why not throw 'em into an empty cellblock, see who survives?

That's insane.

They can't just expect us to...

k*ll or be k*lled?

If the dogs won't fight, heat up the cage. They, uh... they have their ways.

You'll see.

(Exhales)

Nobody can force us to m*rder each other.

Usually they throw a white guy in with a Jap.

(Frank sighs)

The house always wins.

(Piano playing faintly)

Is that a radio?

Hmm?

Where?

Never mind.

Listen...

How long have we been here?

12 hours.

12 hours, you could've brained me anytime.

So the way I see it, we're already b*ating the odds.

We just have to trust each other.

(Scoffs)

That's your plan, Houdini?

Trust?

No.

Game theory.

Trust is the strategy.

The plan is escape.

(laughs)

(exhales)

I was 13.

Excuse me?

The first time I saw Houdini.

He did the milk can escape.

Two summers later he came back and that's when I figured out how he did it.

Right before he went in, his, um... his wife came onstage, do you remember?

Well, she kissed the key into his mouth.

Right in front of everybody.

(sighs) The wife.

Yeah.

You see, most solutions, they hide in plain sight.

I don't plan on doing any k*lling today.

Or dying.

Do you?

Beuker. Joseph Beuker.

Charlie Isaacs.

(Car door shuts)

(horn honks)

Hey, kiddo.

Daddy!

Abby: How was your day?

You know those Chinese circus acts?

Guy juggling plates, you think the whole dinner set's gonna come crashing down on his head?

Sit.

I gotta be back in an hour.

Sorry.

What do you have to go back to?

Sign the pay slips.

Get my requisitions rejected by the Army.

Repeat.

Have you, uh, picked out a color for the nursery yet?

You're building a w*apon.

I wanna know what kind.

Abby.

We said no more secrets.

It's not my secret.

I took a vow.

You've broken other vows.

There are 20-year-old graduate students who know why we're here.

Boys. Helen Prins knows.

You said this baby was a new leaf.

And I won't go back to the way it was before.

Playing make-believe like you're a teacher or salesman and I'm Betty Crocker.

Do you remember... when we had dinner at that, uh... that Italian place in Central Square?

I was bouncing off the walls 'cause a guy named Otto Hahn split the atom.

It's call...

It's called an atomic chain reaction.

(Chatter)

(wind howling)

So Liza actually says that she's heard from Frank?

I mean, she can't stand the Army.

Why would she cover for 'em?

I don't know.

Maybe she's in cahoots with Charlie Isaacs.

Maybe, uh... maybe they bumped off Frank for the life insurance.

Well, I don't like Isaacs any better than the rest of you.

He makes Richard III look like Richard II.

But, you know, maybe Frank really was transferred.

You wanna tell us what we're doing here then, Duchess?

We're looking for h*tler's W.A.M.D.s.

Five miles from the Hill?

Actually, we're five miles above the Earth in German air space.

Have you been eating Fritz's mushrooms?

It's the lowest altitude a surveillance plane can fly.

We're recreating the same conditions laterally.

Radioactive particles ruin photographic film.

We're gonna mount those plates on posts downwind of the Hill.

Well, if the film gets exposed...

So all you need to find a German reactor is an airplane and a roll of Kodak.

Quick and dirty.

Just like Helen.

So we're following Issacs' orders?

We're not doing it for Charlie.

We're doing what Frank would want us to do.

Chasing wild geese in a desert while another team signs its name on a gadget we invented.

We're doing the work we're assigned better than anyone else.

Frank: Beuker!

These are telephone wires out here.

I don't think they're gonna give you your phone call, Charlie.

Pretty sure they already found a substitute for your math class.

You were talking about game theory.

I assume you're not a plumber.

I teach calculus.

Oh.

College.

Like recognizes like. I'm history.

Fisk University. Where did you educate the future nonvoters of America?

I've been chased out of half the schools in the Ivy League.

You know, there's gotta be some kind of... emergency telephone box somewhere in this building.

"Isaacs."

Known a lot of Jewish math professors over the years.

Christian, actually.

I was born that way. I'll die an atheist.

Ah, we've got that in common, too.

(Exhales) A couple atheist teachers, rational, happy fellow travelers so far.

So what is it... what is it...

What? What is what?

(Exhales)

They throw fellas in Tosa who would want to k*ll each other.

They paired us up for a reason.

(Piano playing faintly)

Charlie?

You really don't hear that?

Hear what?

It's the Mourning Cantata for King Frederick.

Losing my mind.

Well, you've come to the right place.

How's an American citizen end up in a hole like this?

(Clears throat)

Just look enough like Yamamoto to piss off the Rotary Club.

Or just look like a plain old white fella who went to the wrong meeting.

Well, did you?

Go to the wrong meeting?

I believed in free thought and I made the mistake of practicing it in a classroom.

How'd you really wind up here?

(Metal clanging)

Hey.

Hey.

Hey!

Listen to me!

Call... call Santa Fe 332...

God damn it!

(Panting)

Hey, uh, how long since you ate?

Yesterday.

You? Uh-uh-uh!

I heard about this.

They drug the food.

Sometimes one tray, sometimes both.

Deal one of us an advantage, see?

Imbalance.

That's crazy.

It can't be that easy getting two strangers to k*ll each other.

Well, you obviously don't teach history.

Okay.

So we both eat from both trays at the same time.

That way if something happens, it happens to both of us, okay?

Yeah.

(Cover clatters)

(crickets chirping)

Picked the wrong desert. I bet it's warm in the Sahara.

It's freezing. How much longer?

Six more plates. 90 minutes.

Who's got a spooky story?

I suppose I've got a spook story.

You know that G-2 guy with the glasses always skulking around bushes with a cola bottle in his hand?

Fritz: I hate that guy.

He vanished into the ether two weeks ago.

They found his badge by the side of the road.

Much the worse for wear.

Where did you hear that?

My secret informant.

Helen: Whichever WAC he's boffing now.

(music playing)

Fritz: We're looking for the n*zi version of the Manhattan Project, right?

We're basically looking for our n*zi...

(gasping, choking)

Fritz: n*zi-Meeks, n*zi-Crosley...

Helen: What's the opposite of a drunk English physicist?

Crosley: A sober Irish priest! And good luck finding one!

(men laughing)

Fritz: I gotta empty the t*nk.

Uh, if some guy comes back, looks like me, handsome, but with no mustache?

That's n*zi-Fritz. Don't trust him!

(Men grunting)

(scraping)

Open it.

Where?

(Both grunting)

(trunk lid closes)

(retches)

Man: You won't see me again.

When the time comes, someone will contact you.

He'll have the other half of this.

(Fritz screams) Holy sh*t!

What?

Come here!

Somebody sh*t it.

Probably target practice.

Can't be a good omen.

We should bury him.

Uh...

Pretty sure the bugs have it under control, pal.

So we just leave him out here to rot?

That's what the Nazis would do.

We're... we're decent human beings.

You all right?

I don't know what we're doing here anymore.

Helen: 'Cause the guy who's supposed to tell us isn't here.

(brakes squealing)

Hey, Beu... Beuker!

Beuker! Beuker, bring me the g*n!

Thought we had a gentleman's agreement.

No gunplay.

Well, there's... there's a telephone box in here.

What's this?

Some kind of boiler room?

We can sh**t this lock off.

Right.

No, no. C...

Beu... Beuker, come here.

Beuker!

Even if there is a phone in there, I doubt they've paid the bill.

If there's any kind of live wire, I could rig something up.

I've got practical experience with that sort of stuff.

(Chuckles) Sounds a little Buck Rogers to me, Charlie.

Who's doing the sh**ting?

Whoever's the best sh*t.

I carried a service revolver in the last w*r.

Oh.

So I guess I ought to give you the g*n, eh?

Look, we have a sh*t.

Literally, one sh*t that we can use to try and escape.

(Piano playing faintly)

You're hearing it again?

You can hear it.

(Chuckles) No, your head's a mess, but, uh, when you mentioned the piece earlier, I-I was surprised.

That's Johann Adolph Scheibe.

So?

How do you even know Scheibe?

Do you play?

No.

No, somebody I used to know, she played him a lot.

(Sighs) Okay, you want the g*n, Charlie?

I'll give it to you.

All right. Fine, good, give it to me.

But I want something back.

The truth.

Who you really are.

I understand... why you're not admitting it, mind you.

Scheibe was, uh...

Bach's only real critic, you know?

He found Bach abstract.

Degenerate. Like the Negroes and their jazz.

You must know where Scheibe's experiencing a resurgence right now.

The same country, the only country, mind you, that guarantees protection of the middle class against unions and immigrants... parasitic financial schemes.

What, Germany?

Yeah.

Not a lot of Scheibe fans in America.

Can't even find his recordings here, can you, Charlie?

Just a plain old white fella who went to the wrong meeting.

"Isaacs."

Christianized from "Heidrich," I'll bet?

(Exhales)

You got High Prussian blood, don't you?

You're a n*zi.

Y-you're an American n*zi.

Have I misjudged you?

So what... what if I had been a Jew?

What, would you have bashed my skull in that first night?

I part with h*tler there.

I have no complaints with the Jewish people, per se.

I ask only for some... open debate about their effect on their host cultures.

You've seen it in academia, the conspiracy against good Aryans like us.

You twisted son of a bitch.

So who played Scheibe for you?

Some old flame?

Did you get your heart broken by a German girl?

Is that where all this anger's coming from?

Where's my anger coming from?

Trust me, Joe. I know the Nazis a lot better than you do.

You're a g*ng of K*llers who brainwashed their own people.

Why am I angry?

Charlie.

My name is not Charlie.

Hey.

Joey just went down.

He was beside himself.

He found a cow skull in the cupboard.

Did you know that Liza Winter kept bones in the house?

Well, she's a biologist.

If you saw Darwin's cupboard, you'd think he was a mass m*rder*r.

What's the matter?

Is there a problem with the... gadget?

Uh... no.

Well... not ours. (exhales)

h*tler's gadget, then?

The Army's gonna inv*de Europe, and when they get there, they need to know how to find the German project.

We have intelligence from inside the n*zi project.

Information about how Heisenberg and Strassmann and Hahn are actually building their gadget.

Well, that's a good thing, isn't it?

It would be... if I was allowed to tell my guys about it.

They're working on the problem with a brain hemisphere tied behind their back.

I know what I would do if I were the Nazis looking for this project.

Yeah, what's that?

I'd come after you.

Say you wanted to end a baseball season.

You could look for the stadiums, try and shut them all down.

Or you could just... get rid of the New York Yankees.

Abby.

What you're talking about, it's complicated.

The... the German physicists they're...

Trying to get rid of us.

Friends. Or they were friends of Oppenheimer's.

Of the senior staff.

These guys, they...

They all came up together.

If...

If the n*zi gadget goes off... will they spare our friends?

You must have photographs of the German scientists.

Their home addresses. The names of their wives and children.

Give those to the Army.

(Pants)

You can't even see the irony.

Sitting in an American concentration camp, but you think the Germans are monsters, huh?

h*tler's more merciful than you think.

Not the first word that comes to mind.

No? Any second, all this, this prison, this country, this life could just, poof! Go away.

What, more Houdini?

The wonder w*apon.

h*tler has a device that could bring the world to its knees, but he doesn't use it 'cause he's merciful.

It's called a sun g*n.

It's a heliobeam that can make an ocean boil or a continent disappear.

Yeah. Last year it was the freeze ray.

The year before that the death ray.

Germany's a nation of liars.

Says the man who lies about his own name.

You don't look too good, Houdini. Huh?

Heatstroke?

Or are you hearing your phantom music again?

You know, I've been to Germany.

Their wonder w*apon is propaganda.

They could convince a parent to eat their own child.

Oh, my God, what did she do to you?

Who?

This girlfriend?

Your n*zi love.

This mysterious Fräulein who played Scheibe concertos for you.

She wasn't my g*dd*mn girlfriend!

(Panting)

No.

She was your mother.

(Exhales)

Son of a bitch.

Son of a bitch.

Is your mother German?

(Lock clangs)

Hey!

Hey!

No! Hey, please!

Hello?!

It's locked.

Tosa.

We're both gonna die in here, aren't we?

(Piano playing faintly)

What temperature does a man's blood boil at?

Still Scheibe?

Where is she now?

Your mother.

I barely knew her.

My parents met through a service.

Isolated bachelors on farms in the Midwest.

And she was from Germany.

Leipzig.

A musical prodigy.

From Leipzig to the Midwest And then back again.

She was gone before I was seven years old.

All I remember is this woman.

No.

No, this young girl... crying.

And the... the piano every night after bedtime.

And then one night there was no piano.

She just disappeared.

You never saw her again.

No, I did.

I did, I saw her.

I saw her one last time.

1936.

You found her?

She was... a musician. Finally.

A concert pianist underwritten by the government.

It took me 30 years, 3,000 miles, a boat, a plane, and a leave of absence.

I went into her dressing room to introduce myself.

She called the Gestapo on me.

Oh, God.

Beukner, do you know why I am telling you this?

Because it's the truth.

What do you get for winning Tosa?

They say the winner goes free.

Right.

If you get out of here and I don't...

I want you to call Santa Fe 33200.

I want you to tell them that Magpie is our work.

It's not theirs.

Tell them to look for the... the letters.

Not the number...

Houdini?

Charlie?

Oh, hey.

Charlie.

Hey.

(Beuker grunts)

(groans)

(pants)

What?

It's a...

This is a fake.

It's...

It's a game.

(Sighs)

Uncle.

(Metal squeaks)

I believe you, Frank.

(Gate clangs)

Where is Avram Fisher?

What... what is this?

The man from Washington who gave you this file.

Where is he?

Who... who the hell are you?

The United States of America.

There... there's no Tosa.

Is there?

All of it, um...

Beuker. W-w...

What was it, a test?

Where is Mr. Fisher, Frank?

He brought you here from the Hill.

What, are you... are you from Los Alamos?

We don't use that name.

What?

(Exhales)

Well, I don't know what kind of sick sons of b*tches you are, but you need to talk to Oppenheimer now.

You need to tell him to... to look at Magpie again.

Magpie is dead, as you know.

Oh, God damn it.

It's not Heisenberg's math.

It's ours. It's... it's mine.

If you get me out of here, I can prove that to you.

How?

You see, my daughter's name... it's written in the equations the Nazis are using to build their b*mb.

You put your daughter's name... in the math?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes, I did. That's what I'm saying.

They got... they got a man on the inside and he's stealing our work.

Mr. Fisher thought you were a n*zi spy.

Is that what all of this was for?

But you're not.

You're simply... ashamed of who you are.

What you came from.

That's good.

We all come from sin.

It's up to us to rise.

(Clears throat)

So... what, is that it?

I'm just free to go home?

(Chuckles) No.

No.

You recognized your own math.

It's all...

It's all a game.

I tell you that I can prove the Nazis are using our science, you... you don't even blink.

Either one of you.

The Germans... Germans didn't write any of this, did they?

You did. It's propaganda.

You're using our math, my math, to convince us the Nazis are winning.

Was... was there even a Magpie in the first place?

We had a man in Heisenberg's lab.

The Nazis sent us his head.

Yeah, but he... he didn't give you that file.

You got a lab full of longhairs, half-Reds, lefty Jews... how do you get them to build a wonder w*apon?

You just tell them Germany's gonna end the world tomorrow.

Dogs won't fight.

Heat up the cage.

Adolf h*tler is after a b*mb, Frank.

Yeah, but how far along is he?

You don't even know, do you?!

How many other people are you selling fake intelligence to?

The Secretary of w*r? The President?

(Water dripping)

(Metal clangs)